MERAKI – a paroxysm of memories

               MERAKI – a paroxysm of memories   

It is already five days on the row I am stuck-in- bed blues, pain, medication and boredom is taking its toll. I never knew injuring the vertebral disc and incapacitating the back would take me back to the past memories. As Haruki Murakami has said "Memories warm you up from inside but they also tear you apart". My memories are filled with lot of gut-wrenching episodes which deserves to be retrieved en number of times.

It is almost 16 years, everything seems to be forgotten, many run-of-the-mill memories of day to day life have faded and lost in the oblivion. Countless things have been erased and overwritten in the book of memories but some memories are still vivid. The worst part of holding memories is not the pain it gives but the urge that it gives to share it to someone. Unhappiness is such a strong element which never lets you forget those incidents which are engraved in your squishy brain.

             I was chatting over a cup of coffee in a small restaurant with an old school friend whom I met accidentally after long years. Those days mobile phones were rare, I was meddling with my Nokia 3210 while talking to my friend.. I was pre occupied and engrossed in some random thoughts, nothing was getting into my head, my friend sounded like a no brainer. My thinking was engulfed with the lone thought of  a decade old love  going to come to an end with her wedding reception  that evening. Every single second I could feel tears rolling down on my face. Being a man it is difficult to show the real emotion, my heart was broken and shattered. There was nothing left for me in this world at that moment.

            I just wore a plastic smile and showed no signs of despair. I was composed and patiently lending my ears to the story of my friend who was an old case of open heart surgery , he had his  own doubts  of tying nuptial knots. The monophonic  ringtone of  Nokia mobile was screaming to be attended , I was lost with a broken heart  wondering if there could be  any open heart surgery to set right things,  though my knowledge was telling me that emotions are just an orchestration of  neuro chemical  conglomeration within the hidden regions of  gray matter, my heart failed to comprehend it . With all annoyance I attended the phone call just to put an end to the rasping noise of the ringtone; it was my father on the other end of the call..

           I heard my father say in a brittle voice that my cousin who was studying 10^th grade had attempted suicide.  I was blank,  I proceeded, "It is just an attempt, isn’t it?" I  never knew that a girl of such caliber would  have the guts to push herself  to an extreme step of killing herself. Who knew, sometimes age does not provide the ability to handle  the emotional trauma. In staccato voice he announced that she was no more. I was not even able to sense pain of the loss, for me my pain was colossal than the death of the innocent adolescent.

           I was inanimate, just picked up my belonging and left the restaurant without even bothering to say a good bye. I navigated through the thick traffic with a lot of mixed thoughts vacillating.  I parked my bike for a while and tried calling my ex girl friend who was awaiting a wedding reception. I had promised her to attend her reception , it was a mutual, painful deliberate decision taken before parting. I called her to tell  that I will not be able to keep up the promise, to my disappointment someone else picked the call and  with reluctant tone  they said that she wasn’t there.

         I entered into a congested street of low income group housing board, dilapidated buildings were standing tall, the place looked like a breeding ground for diseases, the standard of living was portraying the real face of  low socio economic families in Chennai. I could see children playing on the streets, some children were bare bodied and slummy, profanities was a part of their daily life, I could see women doing daily chores on street .. The stink of open sewage filled the air, plastic water pots were piled up.  on streets waiting  to fetch water from corporation tank. I was insentient, I could hear or feel nothing I walked through a narrow stairway leading to the second floor. I could feel the crescendo of misery, I was slowly sensing the reality and I could hear the whimper by now.

I saw my 13 year old cousin lying motionless on the floor, tears started rolling uncontrollably. I sat near her held her lamented forearm, her pulsation must have stopped long before,  her body was freezing chill.

Time elapsed;

         The body was recovered by the local police for autopsy, since it was an unnatural death. It was already 4pm, I was waiting along with others at the morgue to receive the body.

         My mobile was ringing, it was a familiar number,  my ex girl friend was calling. Her voice sounded painful, "Did you call me?" she asked. I could hear her breath  getting stuck in her throat. I replied, "Yes, I wanted to inform you that I wouldn’t be able to make it for your wedding reception". There was a period of silence, I was able hear her sobbing but I was not able to console her.  I told that my cousin is no more and asked her to take care and hung the phone. Sometimes it better to settle things abruptly when words can’t explain.  I burst out crying ,  I didn't know for what I was crying, for the loss of a 13 year old child or for losing ten years of relationship.

          The world seemed strange to me, I could feel a vacuum. I wished the world annihilated spontaneously at that moment..

          The cremation was planned for the next day evening at 4pm , it was a  sleepless night, gazing the lifeless body, the innocent girl. My thoughts were haunted with the past memories of my ex girl friend , uncertainty of life in the form of death in front of my eyes didn't bother me. I still wonder if destiny substantiates Murphy’s Law. Sometimes pain with huge intensity overshadows the  lesser  one, I never knew whether that the untimely death was with a purpose in my life.

           I was feeling sluggish without sleep, I was shabbily dressed with the three month old thick beard and scruffy. I don’t know, something struck me I wanted to attend my ex girlfriend's marriage the next morning, grief had overwhelmed me completely it was like a bad dream which could not be shaken off.

          Next day, it was 6am I telephoned one of my confidante, requested him to accompany me to attend the wedding. I had bought a gift for her, which  I wanted her to wear it on her. I went to saloon, clean shaved my beard, packed a dress, my friend rode me to his work place, I took shower and changed my dress and we both rode to attend the wedding. I was pillion riding. My friend was tailgating the vehicles in the front, nothing bothered me but tears were rolling continuously. The venue of the wedding was 15km long ride, 15km ride was like a horrible dream. Not a  single second was spared , 10 years of relationship and mutual parting for the sake of social and family reasons from her side, was rolling like a flashback sequence like in a Tamil film. I felt like my head was immersed in a bucket of  ice cold water , suffocating , strangling , agonizing to hear the external world . I craved for my heart to fall apart and stop beating.

          Is love that worth, is love such eternal feel, is love the en route to find your soul mate, they say love is temporary insanity cured by marriage , but how many of them are lucky enough to get married to the person whom they love, destiny doesn’t spare anyone , we just pretend to be happy accepting what ensues. Even time doesn’t heal certain pain…

The bike came to a screeching halt, we were very near to the wedding hall, my eyes were swollen and blood red, tears hadn’t stopped yet. I went to a deli on the street corner, bought a water bottle and splashed water on my face before entering the wedding hall. The cacophony of the street and people in wedding hall was insensate to me, I was numb and deadening.

         There was no one who would flash a warm smile, we were uninvited guest, we were gazed like an insect to be stamped to death at any second. But what can they do to a person who is already dead and who suffers delusion similar to Cotard syndrome.

The ceremonious “getti mellam” was not there , it was so called Tamil reformation marriage , these reformation are for their sake convenience. Even today people haven’t ready shed down their caste and creed , this delusion the society suffers from would never change. It will still keep killing people in the name of honor and break relationship for its own selfishness. Humans have forgotten that we all hail from the same primordial soup and every single species carry the same AGTC code in their immortal coils.

I felt someone holding my arms; it was her mother, the only person in the whole crowd who was selfless and helpless too.She asked me why I was late, I didn't have an answer. She guided me through the crowd to the front stage were the married couple were been greeted by friends and family. There she was, my ex girlfriend and standing alongside as someone’s wife today, our eyes stared without emotions, it can't emote either for those social apprehension, moments of silence, that silence had lot of stories to tell and pain to share. Tears were mere expression which exhausted its reserve, my heart was skipping its beats I would fall dead if stayed further and that would also cause social inconvenience.

I felt everything was freezing around me, there were no words to exchange. What would I wish a person with whom I wanted to spend rest of my life. I handed over the gift to her mother and my eyes were parting to say one last good bye to her.

There was a body waiting to be cremated….